So, ... who are you?

..hehe...you were & are a dandy!...

 

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Hi all. Nice introductions from everyone.

@lordmarcovan: Depression and self doubt are terrible things. Don’t let the siren song of those nasty twins do you in. You are a good kind man who has done wonders for the folks in the boards and I suspect in real life. You’ve been a friend since CU days probably 15 years or so. You certainly bring joy to people’s lives.

I’m Nick. I run casinos for a living after I left grad school when I realized academia was not for me. There is both a lot more to it than people see but also a lot of the dumb things you do see. After 20 some years I have a good position in management but one of the quirks of casino businesses is that it still means that I will be there on NYE at midnight. After years of operations, I’m okay with the idea of a desk and 9-5. Or selling hotdogs, whatever comes first.

I collected everything when I was a kid. I spent my whole Saturday at the local shop where the resident numismatist treated me like her son, parties at her house and hangouts with her kids included. I focused on Russian Imperial and all over the place in the US. High school and college were lost years as well as my twenties. A failed marriage in my twenties produced my lovely daughter who is a junior in HS. I am currently reading her college solicitation letters from the likes of U of Chicago and Harvard and Stanford and laughing at how little of a chance there is to pay for any of it. Might as well buy more coins.

I met my current wife in my mid thirties and sort of figured my life out or at least was less self destructive about it. We married and I now also have a three year old who is ridiculous and makes me run around all day.

I came back to some ancients and British I had and collect both avidly. Russian is still ridiculously priced so at some point I’ll either sell or add more when it’s sensible.

I focus on Septimius Severus, his wife Julia Domna and Probus. I’m hopeful to contribute to the references of Severus in the future. My wife is smarter than I am, likes that I like stuff and like to dig into it so luckily she tolerates all of this nonsense.

 

...i don't have any pics of me per say uploaded and heck, at this time i can't even get a pic of birds

..here's me wearing my shirt......

 

LLP

 

Hi everyone

Thanks for sharing your stories. Here's mine:

My name is Dan Herschberg.
I'm originally Dutch, but live in Norway these days. 57 years old now ( time flies!). Studied Slavic languages in university, but completely lost interest in both the country and the language after living in the USSR for the better part of a year. I still read Chechov and Paustovskij every now and then, but that is it. Perhaps it is true what they say, that the book is much better...

I live in a small village nobody except possibly Svessien has heard of. It's only claim to fame is its notouriously cold winters, also rumour has it it's the worlds leading player in the manufacture and distribution of a type of sled called 'spark' in Norwegian.

I work in an institution for the mentally disabled, mostly at night. Why?
Mostly because they're nice people. And also, honestly, because I'm lazy.
Other interests? I play guitar ( for some reason right handed although I'm left handed, which can be frustrating). I like to read, ( right now 'Daily Life in Ancient Rome') and I started collecting ancient coins about a year and a half ago, so my collection is small (Bing made me smile when he modestly wrote:' my collection is rather small with somewhere near 800 coins'. God, I thought my 60-70 was pretty cool and impressive! ). I collect mostly Greek, but won't shy away from a nice Roman. I have always been fascinated by ancient Greece: mythology, history, philosophy. Great to see that reflected in coins.

Lately I'm toying with the idea of laying my own mosaic floor using motives from Ancient Greek coins. If only I owned a house instead of renting one. (So perhaps there's a downside to all this laziness as well...) Must be great to cut your own tesserae, to design a mosaic and then lay it. Perhaps one day...

Other than that I'm happily divorced from a Norwegian woman and father of two boys.

 

Good idea for a thread. I am proud to say I have become friends, to some extent, with some really nice people on here. Lord Marcovan, PaddyB, Bing, Siberian Man to name just a few. I retired from a 35 year career as a marine engineer and promptly moved to Thailand, where I remain. Have an easy life here, get to do lots of cooking, some traveling, drink a beer or two now and then. Its a rough job. I have a great wife, lots of cats and a couple dogs, and we all live together in almost harmony.

 

It turns out that I have an update. Yesterday my wife of 50 years and I went to the high school for the graduation of our only grandson. The school had an alternative graduation where each member of the class walked across the stage and was handed their diploma by the masked Principal to an audience of not more than five family members space about ten minutes apart and guided by teachers keeping groups at least 50 feet apart. It took four days to do everyone. While not everyone in the class agreed, our grandson was quite happy to have avoided the huge event usually held downtown and, especially, all the speeches that go with it. Last year, as a Junior Marshal, he had carried in the US flag for the 2019 event so he was very much 'been there, done that' about the whole thing. Now we just hope that college starts on schedule in the fall so that his mask has the correct number on it.

I spent my life working for people who thought they were important (and a very few who actually were). I had no great accomplishments and it turned out that neither did they. I think of my life as being like Forrest Gump without all the heroism, running, drama and chocolate. I had a good seat to watch history. I missed a week of my senior year in high school when the country was mourning President Kennedy. My grandson missed the last twelve weeks of his due to the pandemic. While I hope he outdoes me a dozen times in many respects, I would really like it if he develops an interest in ancient coins and wants mine. So far, the chances are well under one in twelve (thousand?).

 

@dougsmit, somehow you are always one of the CT guys I always look up to. Anything and everything you have to say bears listening to. Sounds like you have done a real good job with your life so far, and it is far from over!

 

Thank you, coin_nut. I suppose I should just take a compliment gracefully but most people who like me are just a little bit nutty in some way and being a coin nut is one of the better nut variations.

 

This is who I am:

https://twitter.com/andrewahala

With the exception of my family and the wider family of those under my care, whom I keep outta the public eye, what you see on my twitter fairly represents me and my interests and views.

Andrew

 

Just the reactions I hoped for and described in the intro for this thread: warm, insightful, interesting, friendly and relatable. I've read all of them
Just for good measure, here's a coin I bought yesterday:

CELTS, Uncertain tribe (Bituriges ?). Denomination: BI Potin, minted: Central Gaul; 200-100 BC
Obv: Helmeted head, looking to the left.
Rev: Raven standing, to the left
Weight: 3.85g; Ø:20mm. Catalogue: LT.manque - DT.2675 - BN.manque - PK.60 - Sch/SM.424. Provenance: Found in North France, near Abbevile; acq.: 06-2020
Very rare (R3) specimen, only a few sold in previous auctions last 10 year.

 

My name is Martin. A member of Generation X. My handle @maridvnvm is a hail back to the place I was born, which is Carmarthen in Wales (UK). I started my working life as a software engineer and whilst there was one in the UK I worked in the Telecomms industry. I now live in Chepstow in the UK, which is within a stones throw of a range of Roman historical sites.

I have been collecting coins since I was a small boy but didn't really find ancients until about 20 or so years ago. I started as a bottom feeder gathering whatever I could get my hands on and trying to learn about the coins, the coinage and the history.

I started to specialise within a few years on Lugdunum, Probus and the Severans. Though this didn't stop me keeping up an ecclectic set of various coins to continue with learning about areas of Ancient coinage that I know nothing about.

I have since narrowed this down to the eastern coinage of Septimius Severus with much more specialisation even more narrow that that wihtin that coinage but I won;t bore you with the details are there are VERY few who would care of think me sane. I also norrowed in on Probus from Lugdunum. These form the core ofmy current collection.

I decided many years ago that the scurge of fakes was potentially going to put me off collecting and determined to learn what I could. I was a very active member on Forvm and am an admin on the Fake reports there. I am less active there than I have ever been and much more active on CT.

Most people I know don't understand my collection and I have learned that most people on Forvm and CT don't understand it either but I don't care as it is MY collection and I collect for me and not for other people.

 

Great thread (re)idea! It is always fun to read up on you all, your families, personality quirks and get to put faces to writing and collecting styles.
I am a soon to be 39 year old claims processing supervisor. And yes, it is as glamorous as it sounds. Fast cars, faster women (man do they run fast!) and always having to keep an eye on my gun. jk. Thanks to COVID I get to work from home. Here I am hamming it up just after a run (in my old office before upgrading when we realized the pandemic wasn't going to just go away).


Married to my lovely wife for 15 years in sept. We waited almost a decade to have kids. And now I am swimming in diapers. We have Forest (4), and the twins, Alexander the Great and River (both 2). And then Oscar, our quaker parrot, is currently our only pet.

(pic from a year or 2 ago)

It's funny how much you forget about yourself when you spend so much time with your littles. But as best as I can remember, I love to write, play music, I run a lot (especially now that COVID has closed my gym down), drink Scotch on the pro circuit, used to be a bit of a local celebrity on the boxing and MMA shows. They used to call me the professor of pugilism and I had a blast calling televised fights (both blow by blow and color commentary), doing a weekly radio show and have even been in documentaries on the sport #triplethreat. Every now and again my phone will go off and I will do an event here or there, but real life got in the way of that dream and gave me a different one that I am LOVING.
I did some college, but just enough to score me a beautiful woman who is much too good and much smarter than I.
I do suffer from depression from time to time and find it important to talk about it. Mental illness is something we all deal with in degrees and needs to lose it's stigma.
Like with running, I came into ancients late. Introduced to em by my pops, a retired Chief in the US Air force. I have always been attracted to and interested in history. And then when I found out that I could hold coins from some of my favorite people throughout history, I was dunfor.
Love the hobby, love the history and love all my CT pals. Thanks for making this such an awesome place to decompress, learn and laugh.

 

I'll keep mine short and sweet...bay area native, got my undergrad in 2018, have been bouncing around various education programs for employment. My collecting itch really got started 10 years ago when inheriting part of a relative's collection. My ugly mug ain't fit for a coin forum but y'all may have seen my other pictures of the pizzas I make, or the fossils I collect.

 

I also forgot to add that I am a Gen X'r....pic below from last August. I can't climb cliffs - about the best I could do was the hike up to the summit of Mt. Whitney a few years back. Enjoy hiking/camping when I get the chance.

 

I'm Mat & I am 41 years old. Born & have lived in Los Angeles all my life. Single w/no kids.

Been collecting since 1986 when my step-grandfather introduced coins to me when I asked what a "P" "D" "S" meant on U.S. coins. I got into ancients around 2010 due to buying my first one here on cointalk. Since then ancient's have been my main collecting interest.

I continue to buy whatever catches my eyes. The past few months I started collecting Parthians but stopped posting them here since they really aren't popular with the comments.

I also enjoy medieval & world moderns. I even have bought a few U.S. coins recently since I had to sell some off to pay for medication for my late grandmother, which I resented.

I continue to collect are toys, autographs, comic books, various pop culture memorabilia.

A very new pic of me:

 

Lovely stories! I like to read and know more about the people behind the avatar and nickname.
I'd like to share some info as well, alhough i have shared some info when I joined this board. So i will keep it short.
I m from the NL, in my mid thirties, married for over 8 years and have a beautiful little 4 year old girl and the most happy 7 months old baby boy i've ever seen.
Im addicted to football, and the combination kids, football work and coins is a difficult one. In my daily life i m a lawyer, working for the government.
A friend of mine brought a coin from Rome for me, some years ago. It got me into roman coins. I like European classical history, particulary Roman, but I did not have a clue about how easy it was to have real history in hand.
Were on our vacation now, and cannot post a coin. But most of my coins are on Forum.
It also good to see quite some younger folks on this board. To me that sounds like the hobby is alive! The younger parents could start a support group: how to shift between diapers and coins ;-)

 

My name is Dave and my avatar picture is one of my favorite shots I've taken, in front of a library at USC. For a while I fancied myself a photographer until I realized that I wasn't all that good.

I graduated from UCLA with a MA, BS and BA but despite all that, have never held a real job since graduating in 2018. Best I could do was minimum wage part time at a local YMCA. The virus didn't help either, so now I'm just bumming around life, drinking and smoking more than I care to admit. Since 2012 I've been restoring and reselling clarinets and saxophones for a decent profit. It's been a great supplemental income, and I established a reputation for being a true authority on antique and vintage clarinet history, information, and appraisals.

The first post I posted on this forum was asking if CoinManage was a good inventory software. From there, I participated quite a it in the US Coins forum. I tried to make money by buying "cull lots" and attempting to resell. I did not end up making much money at all, and quit that business. I ended up getting tired of US coins since they all looked the same to me.

Then I got heavily into collecting foreign paper money, mostly ABNC 20th century notes from South America and Europe.

After I got tired of that, I started collecting Roman coins. I first bought a lot of uncleaned coins like 3 or so years ago, which were overwhelming poor. I did trade one of those coins for a free buffet meal at a UCLA dining hall, which was worth $13 or so. Great deal, since I made back almost the entire investment on the uncleaned coins.

Only about 6 or so months ago did I finally get into collecting Roman coins for real. I started with a $9.67 Augustus As, and then soon found myself spending over a thousand bucks on coins, much of which were pretty crummy. I made several featured posts detailing my experience and reviews of these crummy coins I bought.

 

Born in a small (3000) town in SE Kentucky, everything was so homogeneous around me, I came to appreciate diversity. I don't ever remember not having an interest in coins and chemistry. BS in chemistry from U of Ky and PhD organic chemistry U of Ga. I put off working with post-graduate stints at Clemson Univ. and Polytechnic Univ. in Brooklyn. Came to CA in 1978 to San Diego to work on recording tape manufacturing. Before leaving NYC, I had met a Japanese lady who returned to Japan. In San Diego I got a call from her forwarded from my NYC number as she was passing through LA on her way to New York. I persuaded her to stay in CA and our 40th anniversary is in July. We moved to Redwood City and then to our permanent home in Camarillo, CA. Two daughters, both married to great guys. Far too many coins, United States and foreign, but interest in Ancients sparked from the wonderful coins and wonderful people on CT. No particular direction, just interesting coins, sparked often by coins I see on CT.

 

For me, the best part of this thread, besides getting to know more about many of the wonderful people on this forum, has been that it very much belies the stereotype that collecting ancient coins is a dying hobby pursued only by men over 60 -- if not 70 or 80! (Not that there's anything wrong with that, as the saying goes; I'm starting to get up there in age myself.) There have been lots of people posting who are under 50, 40, and even 30. And I'm not the only woman who posts here, either.

I don't think this should surprise anyone. A lot of young people are interested in ancient history, the history of ancient art, classical mythology, etc. I think it's a short path from being interested in any of these subjects to taking an interest in ancient coins and realizing that you can actually own nice-looking examples of them for not very much money. And realizing how much more interesting they are than U.S. coins (in my humble opinion.) And there are at least as many young women as men interested in these subjects. When my son was an undergraduate art history major, when he was a master's student, and now that he's a PhD student, women have always comprised a substantial majority of his classes. For obvious reasons, nor do I believe that the collecting impulse is a function of the "male ego," as one of our members was once told. Women are "collectors" every bit as much as men; it's simply that the objects they collect don't stereotypically include coins. Personally, I've never had the slightest interest in china figurines or dishes!